Development of photosensitive material is generally carried out by dipping it in a processing solution in a tank of an automatic processor for a predetermined time. For continuous processing of a vast quantity of photosensitive material, a solution replenishing system is often employed to keep an effective composition of the processing solution in the tank. As a certain amount of photosensitive material is processed, a fresh processing solution referred to as a replenisher is replenished to the processing tank while the exhausted processing solution is forced out of the tank in an overflow manner.
Some prior art systems for preparing and replenishing such a replenisher are briefly described. FIG. 7 shows one exemplary system associated with an automatic processor for X-ray photosensitive material. The illustrated system is designed to prepare a developer replenisher and supply it to a developing tank 2 through which photosensitive material designated at S is passed. Three independent cartridges 4a, 4b and 4c are filled with three partial stocks A, B and C, respectively, which are admitted into a storage tank 12 along with a necessary volume of diluent water and agitated and mixed by a chemical mixer or the like to prepare a developer replenisher Q2. The replenisher Q2 in the storage tank 12 is fed to the processing or developing tank 2 as desired by means of a pump 13. At the same time, the exhausted solution exits the tank 2 through an overflow pipe 22. Similarly in a fixing tank, a fixer replenisher is prepared from two partial stocks and diluent water, stored in a storage tank, and pumped to the fixing tank as desired.
The chemical agents constituting the developer and fixer are stored in a plurality of partial stocks for the purposes of avoiding interaction therebetween, preventing deterioration with time, and insuring long term shelf storage.
This replenishing system undesirably requires a large space for installation because the storage tank 12 must have a large volume to store replenisher Q2. To meet the recently increasing demand for compact processors, it is desired to reduce the size of the replenisher storage tank.
Another replenishing system which was developed under such circumstances eliminated a replenisher storage tank. FIG. 8 shows such a replenishing system which is designed to directly feed partial stocks A, B and C from three independent stock cartridges 4a, 4b and 4c to a sump by means of feed pumps 14, 15 and 16, respectively, along with diluent water which is fed by means of a pump 17. The partial stocks A, B and C are mixed with diluent water in the sump to prepare a replenisher Q2, which is then fed to a processing or developing tank 2. Every time when the cartridges 4a to 4c become empty and are to be replaced, it is necessary to withdraw nozzles of feed tubes from the empty cartridges and connect them to new cartridges. This replacement operation is cumbersome. It seldom occurs that the partial stocks A, B and C are fully consumed at the same time without a remainder. One or two partial stocks can remain or be prematurely consumed probably because of the practical limit of accuracy of the pumps 14 to 16, but it is difficult to incorporate a correcting mechanism. It is undesirable to equip the cartridges 4a-4c with mechanisms for detecting the volume of remaining liquid because the cartridges are frequently replaced by new ones. Therefore, this system requires careful daily service and maintenance, eventually cumbersome operations and suffers from poor accuracy.